KrypticKat:
Next week I'll have the keys to my first house. I'm back to work full time. I have happy hobbies. I feel more like me. But I wouldn't say life is joyful. The closer I get to the move the more I think about him. I'm worried did I do enough. I wonder if he'd be proud of everything I've done and where I am now. I wonder where we would be right now if that car accident never happened. And then I try to reminisce looking at videos and pictures and I start to cry all over again. Knowing life will never be quite right. Wistfully hoping that maybe one day life will be good. But my brain has a hard time believing a life without the man I love, my first real love, could ever be good. I know this is a healthy step but part of me clings desperately to the past and what once was. But if I have to look at it honestly I've been living in the shadow of something that is gone. I think part of the sadness I feel all the time is because of that shadow I'm living in. That is why I know I need to move forward. And yet all I really want to do is climb into a time machine and stop my husband from getting in that car. I want to go to the cottage for that weekend trip with my family that we were planning that weekend. I want to hug him so tight and never let go. And yet I am alone. Making huge Decisions by myself. Smart decisions and good decisions but alone none the less. I wonder if I'll ever be happy for more than a few moments. Or if this is what they mean by the 'new normal'. Will good things that happen always be under this layer of sadness and longing for something that can never be? I truly hope this isn't my life sentence. I hope one day I can look at all these decisions and all the goodness that is coming my way now and actually feel true joy and gratefulness for what I have. But I don't think I'm there yet. I think I still have grieving to do. Looking at people that are ahead of me on these boards gives me hope. But my brain still has a hard time comprehending how they got to where they are. I suppose that's why they say you have to do this journey alone. I hate being alone.

Julester3:
Congrats on the new home. Things sound very positive but I understand that progress as positive as it is has its yang, the shadow of sadness that underlies it because of what we have experienced. I agree it's our new normal and how we adapt. We are forever changed. Hugs and here's to an easy move in!

Raymond:
Good evening KrypticKat,

I hope all is as well as it can be.

Grief must be fed. Regrets and guilt from backwards. Anxiety and fears from forward. When you are present you feel alone. Indeed you are in Grief's shadow.

I would ask you not to think of it as a journey with a beginning and end but rather a weight you carry. You will get stronger in the carrying of it . . . and you are. There is movement. That implies purpose. That implies -- dare I say it -- hope. From hope joy eventually finds it way into the little crevices where slivers of light are not blotted out by the shadow. This is how life catches and you begin to grow.

You will amaze yourself at how strong you will become from carrying the weight. As time passes it shall become like a locket you wear or mayhap a ribbon. Always there . . . a symbol of all the knowledge and experience you have gained from your loved one and his passing.

Yes, in a way you are alone. You must carry the weight to become stronger. However, you must allow those who love you to carry you. Let them carry your water.

Englishwidow:
Raymond, your analogy of grief as a weight, that one just becomes better at carrying, rather than a linear progression was perfect. Thank you

KrypticKat:
@Raymond. Thank you for your kind wise words. I often do think of my grief that way. It's something that I'm bringing along with me. It is certainly grown lighter in the last year and no longer suffocates, chokes and consumes me entirely. But it does weigh me down often still. I try not to judge myself because the reality is it's only been a little over a year.

When you love somebody so honestly there is a deep wound left behind by the lack of their presence.

I've now been in my new home for about a month. Things are going okay. I've had moments of panic where I question why I did this to myself and then I have moments of true happiness where I sit in my new kitchen window and the sun comes in and I feel like a new day is dawning.

The last few weeks have been particularly hard since Thanksgiving. The first holiday of my second year. I didn't prepare for it at all because I guess I didn't expect it to hit me but it did. The fog on the grief sat underneath the surface all weekend as I smiled and did I actually enjoy myself to a degree. But ever since Thanksgiving I've honestly felt more boggef down than I have in a while. Lonely, sad, frightened...I'm honestly not sure how to shake it.